Oct 23, 2004, 12.00am IST
In Maharashtra, Durga is better known as Bhavani, who inspired Chhatrapati Shivaji to fight oppression. In the song Vande Mataram composed by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Mother India is identified with the Mother Goddess, Durga.
The Devi Mahatmyam enunciates our vision of God as mother. She is conceived as Shakti or energy and the whole universe is the expression of that Shakti.
Having created this world from within herself, she preserves it and finally reabsorbs it at the time of final dissolution.
This spiritual truth is sustained by the philosophy that chit shakti, the energy of consciousness, is the ultimate reality behind the universe and that it is masculine-feminine, Brahmn-Maya, Shiva-Shakti and Impersonal-Personal.
The masculine aspect is its quiescent state while the feminine form is the active one.
Shiv-Shakti represents the unity of eternity and time. She is Mahavidya and Mahamaya, supreme know-ledge and illusion, Mahamedha and Mahasmriti, great intellect and sharp memory.
Durga is the primordial source of everything and manifests all the three gunas, sattva (truth, tranquillity), rajas (passion, restlessness) and tamas (darkness, ignorance).
She is the terrible night of periodic cosmic dissolution and the great night of final dissolution.
"I salute again and again that Goddess who abides in all beings as mother." Durga is prakriti, which is two-fold: apara prakriti or ordinary nature which is subject to change and para-prakriti or higher nature which sustains the universe.
As para prakriti she nourishes us all with her bountiful yield. This concept makes a strong case for environmental protection.
There are many accounts of Durga’s origin. In the Skanda-purana, when a demon threatened the world, Parvati, at the instance of Shiva transforms herself into a warrior-goddess and overpowers the demon.
In the Vishnu-purana, with her help Vishnu tackles a demon who is out to kill the infant Krishna. Devi Mahatmyam narrates three of Durga’s cosmic interventions at the behest of the gods.
As Mahamaya (one with the ability to delude) she comes to the aid of Vishnu and deludes the demons, Madhu and Kaitabh, defeating them.
Shumbha and Nishum-bha, the two demons, depu-ted two of their commanders, Chanda and Munda, to kill the goddess when she came to the rescue of the gods in distress.
But both were killed in the conflict. Hence her name Chamunda. Raktabeeja was the next challenge — her task became difficult because from every drop of blood shed by him a thousand more like him arose.
She, therefore, received the blood in her mouth before it fell on the ground and thus the demon was killed. She defeated Shum-bha and Nishumbha also after a fierce battle.
While Chanda and Munda stand for the lower states of egoism and ignorance in a person Raktabeeja represents a more subtle malicious tendency with multiple traits continuing with dogged persistence.
This evil can be eliminated only by going to the root of the problem however arduous the task.
In the Mahishasura episode, the buffalo-demon and his rampaging associates drove away all the gods from heaven. From the conjoined energies of the gods arose the Goddess, the parts of whose body and whose weapons were donated by each individual divinity.
Despite all the deceptive tricks played by the demon he was overpowered by the Devi after a protracted and fierce battle, symbolising the triumph of good over evil.
M N Chatterjee
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